


Tonight at Noon

by Draycevixen



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M, Misunderstanding, Stakeout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 21:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/pseuds/Draycevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A failure to communicate spells trouble for the lads.</p><p>Written for the prompt: <i>Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.</i> Oscar Wilde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight at Noon

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tonight at Noon](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3205) by Adrian Henri. 



.

Doyle was tired of staring at the grimy little block of grey pebble-dashed maisonettes. _Ill lit by moonlight_. His brow furrowed. No, that wasn't quite how the quote went but the sentiment still seemed to fit. Its scrubby little garden, choked with overgrown bushes and littered with dying potted plants, was so unwelcoming that even the moths seemed to instinctively avoid it, to say nothing of what any stray fairies might think. Yellowing net curtains hung forlornly in the windows of the first floor maisonette on the right hand side. Doyle had now been staring at those curtains through the binoculars for long enough to notice a three inch tear in the one hanging in the bedroom window. When Ray had shared this newly acquired information Bodie had merely grunted and it hadn't seemed worth alerting Cowley.

Ray risked another glance over at Bodie. He was propped up on the mattress pad he'd tossed in to the corner of the room, reading a book with such intensity that Ray was surprised that the pages didn't simply burst into flames. According to the title on the cover, the book was _The Mersey Sound, Penguin Modern Poets 10, Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten_. Also on the cover were two inverted black and white images of a screaming woman, two more of a statue of a man on horseback and a red skyline of what appeared to be the bank of the Mersey itself. Ray knew these things by heart because he’d had plenty of time to memorize them. Two whole hours of stolen glances at the top of Bodie’s head stubbornly bent behind the cover of that bloody paperback. If it hadn’t been for the occasional small movement as Bodie turned a page Doyle wouldn’t even have been completely sure that Bodie was awake.

“Good is it?”

Bodie didn't even look up. “Very.”

“Then read me something.”

This time, the dark head rose slightly from the book but still didn't turn toward him. “Aren't you supposed to be watching the building?”

“I can look through the binoculars and listen to you at the same time.”

“No.”

“Worried you won't be able to pronounce the big words correctly?”

Bodie finally turned to look at him, his face only partially illuminated by the small torch he was using to read his book. Doyle bit back the urge to cheer.

“You _really_ want me to read poetry to you?”

“I'm bored. You can read aloud from _The Sun_ for all I care, there's a copy over there that Anson left, though you might want to use Braille on the Page Three girl and—”

“—I'll read you a poem, if you'll just shut up.”

Another quick glance revealed Bodie carefully leafing through the pages, obviously searching for a particular poem.

“ _Tonight at Noon_ , by Adrian Henri. You know it?”

“More of a limerick bloke myself. You know, something along the lines of _There once was a Scotsman called Cowley_...”

With a heavy sigh, Bodie's head burrowed back into his book. Doyle wanted to cross the room, wrench the book out of his hands and kiss him, but only an idiot wouldn't have seen that book as a clear “Keep Out” sign. A month ago, Bodie would have been coming up with rhymes for “Cowley” and then suggesting a few physically impossible acts to be described in loving detail in the body of the limerick. A week ago, Doyle would have been struggling to pay attention to the street below while Bodie slid his hands inside Doyle's jeans, whispering his detailed plans for Ray's body. And now? Bodie would respond to a question as needed, but he wouldn't start a conversation with Ray or continue one for any longer than was strictly necessary under any circumstances. If he could get Bodie to read to him, perhaps he could then get him to talk to him.

“Sorry mate. Read the poem.”

As Bodie's face rose warily over the book's cover again, Doyle risked a smile. Bodie stared back at him for a moment, before dropping his eyes back to the page and slowly beginning to read aloud.

> Tonight at noon  
> Supermarkets will advertise 3d extra on everything  
> Tonight at noon  
> Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home  
> Elephants will tell each other human jokes  
> America will declare peace on Russia  
> World War I generals will sell poppies on the street on November 11th  
> The first daffodils of autumn will appear  
> When the leaves fall upwards to the trees—

“I thought poetry was supposed to rhyme.”

Bodie's head snapped up. “Philistine. Do you want me to read to you or not?”

Bodie wasn't even really looking at him, but rather looking right through him at the wall behind him, in the way they’d been taught to break a board in Karate class, by imagining their hand striking at a point on the other side.

“Sorry.” Apparently sorry was the word of the day, although Doyle still didn't have the faintest bloody clue what he was actually supposed to be sorry for. “Go on.”

> Tonight at noon  
> Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards  
> Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing fields  
> A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool  
> Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton  
> And Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well  
> White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights  
> In front of the Black house  
> And the monster has just created Dr. Frankenstein  
> Girls in bikinis are moonbathing  
> Folksongs are being sung by real folk  
> Art galleries are closed to people over 21  
> Poets get their poems in the Top 20  
> There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them  
> In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight—

“What's he going on about?”

“I haven't finished read—”

“It's nonsense and if you're going to read nonsense rhymes to me then I'd prefer Lewis Carroll. Don't you have something a bit, well, racier in there? Poems like—”

“Forget it, Ray.”

“We should have stuck with the limericks. I've got a really good rhyme for Horatio and—”

That little remark earned Ray a full blown set of Bodie eyebrows, more reaction than he'd managed to get out of him in days.

“I said forget it.” Bodie rolled over toward the wall, tucked his right arm under his head and returned to staring at the book. Doyle heard him mutter, “I should have known better, you were clear enough.”

As the silence threatened to drown them, Doyle wanted to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean. In the last four days Bodie's personal Iron Curtain had slammed into place. Doyle had tried to break through, to ask what had happened to change things between them, but Bodie had shrugged it off, remote in a way he hadn't been since the earliest days of their partnership. Short of holding a gun to Bodie's head Doyle didn't know what else to try. He decided to try the direct approach again.

“Bodie.”

“Christ, what now?” Bodie turned back over to face him.

“How did this” Doyle gestured backward and forward between the two of them “get started?”

Bodie's shoulders tensed and Ray wasn't sure he was going to answer him.

“Answer the question, Bodie.”

“...You kissed me.”

 

It really had been that simple. It had happened in Doyle's kitchen, three weeks before when Bodie had pinned him to the floor during an impromptu wrestling match over the last remaining beer. In an odd moment of alcohol fuelled clarity, while staring up into Bodie's laughing face, Ray had realized that everything he wanted was hovering a mere four inches above him. Doyle had reared up and kissed him and after a shocked pause Bodie had returned it with enough enthusiasm to bounce Doyle's head off the kitchen floor. Ray had woken up under his kitchen table with his cold damp jeans sticking to his crotch and Bodie asleep across his chest.

 

“Why did it happen again?”

“...You wanted it to.”

 

Things had been a little awkward between them the following morning, the amount of beer they'd consumed making it all too easy to pass the whole thing off as a drunken escapade which they did by tacit agreement. It had been two more days before a stone cold sober Doyle had reached across the car and wrapped his hand around the back of Bodie's neck, dragging him in close enough to kiss. After that, there'd been no stopping them. It had been just like they were randy teenagers again, out of control and gagging for each other. Frantic hand jobs in the car and then in the emergency stairwell of a hotel during clean up operations had led to blow jobs in the elevator and even late one night in the shower at HQ. Bodie had even tried to coax Doyle into christening Cowley's desk, a move only thwarted by Cowley's unexpected return to his office.

 

“Why did it keep happening?”

“...We wanted it to.”

 

They had collapsed on to Doyle's bed in a drunken sprawl, a breathless tangle of limbs and searching mouths, their clothing quickly dispatched by hot busy hands. Doyle had thought his heart might stop when Bodie had handed him a tube of lubricant before slowly turning over and offering himself. It had been so much more than Doyle had ever imagined it could be, a pounding climax of soaring sensations and whispered feelings.

Doyle had woken up to an empty bed.

 

“Why did it stop?”

“...I ...wanted it to.”

 

Doyle hadn't initially been too worried. As he'd got ready for work he'd recalled the awkwardness after their first night together and had assumed that this was just more of the same. He'd get to work, find Bodie and get it sorted. Only it hadn't gone that way. Bodie had carefully managed to avoid him for most of the morning, even “forgetting” to save a seat for Doyle at Cowley’s briefing. When Bodie had gone so far as to volunteer to help Anson finish up some paperwork Doyle had known that they were really in trouble.

When Cowley had sent them home to get some sleep before their first stakeout shift, Doyle had made sure to get to Bodie's Capri first and then had insisted that it would save time if Bodie were to drop him off and pick him up for the stakeout. The drive to Doyle's flat had been made in complete silence. Once there Doyle had asked Bodie to come up, saying he wanted to talk about what had happened between them and for a few minutes it had looked like Bodie would. Then half way out of the car Doyle had hesitatingly mentioned that if Bodie hadn't liked being on the bottom it was all right because he was happy to experiment and Bodie had muttered something about needing to get some rest and had driven off the moment Doyle had closed the car door.

 

Four days later and this was the closest Doyle had managed to get to having Bodie talk about what had happened between them.

“But why did you—” Doyle's words were cut off as the R/T crackled on.

The stakeout was off. Baker had shown up at his mother's house and been arrested by Jax without a struggle. As Doyle signed off, Bodie had already risen to his feet and started to collect their gear together.

“Bodie I—”

“I have to take a piss.” Bodie put down the holdall he was gripping too tightly. “I'll nip out to the back garden and be back to help you take the equipment out to the car.”

As Bodie left the room, Doyle sighed and went to pick up the binoculars case. As he did so, he noticed that Bodie had left his poetry book on the mattress. Bending down to pick it up, he turned quickly to the Henri poem. Scanning down the page he realized that there were only a few lines of the end of the poem that Bodie hadn't managed to read to him.

> In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living  
> and  
> You will tell me you love me  
> Tonight at noon.

Doyle stared at the dog eared book in his hand. Bodie hadn't picked this particular poem by accident. It didn't make any sense. If Bodie had wanted a commitment from Doyle then why had he been so distant?

“That's mine.”

Doyle looked up, book in hand, to see Bodie standing in the doorway.

“If you wanted more, then why didn't you just say so?”

“I did.” Bodie stepped forward and took the book from Doyle's hand.

“I don't remember you saying anything about it. C'mon Bodie, I'm not a bloody mind reader.”

“I told you that night... how I felt” Bodie twisted the book in his hands and then shoved it into his jacket pocket. “And then I asked you how you...”

Bodie turned away to fiddle with the binoculars case.

“What did I say?”

Doyle stepped around him, putting one had on Bodie's shoulder, feeling the muscles tense up beneath his hand.

“Look at me. What did I say to you?”

“That you loved _fucking_ me, all right?” Bodie straightened up, shrugging off Doyle's hand. “You can keep your bloody experiments. It's not enough for me, just let it go.”

“Christ, Bodie.”

Doyle started laughing, stopping as he saw Bodie tensing up, fists clenching at his sides.

“I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at us. We were so drunk that night, it's a bloody miracle that we were even capable of getting it up and then you went and shagged my brains out. Bodie, I don't even remember you asking me a question let alone answering you.”

“Right then... Just forget I said anything.” Bodie wouldn't meet his eyes. “We should collect the rest of the kit and get going.”

Doyle moved in closer to Bodie, putting one hand on his arm.

“Come home with me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Doyle tightened his grip.

“Stop running away from me.”

“I don’t run away from anyone.” Bodie’s jaw tightened. “It’s just late and I’m tired.”

“It's not that late at all.” Doyle reached into Bodie's jacket pocket and pulled out the book, pressing it against Bodie's chest. “In fact it's only noon, you stupid bugger.”

 

.


End file.
